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Part 3: You are the Problem, Not Your Systems – will the real TCO please step forward!

In the 90s, I remember the promise of moving away from the collection of old legacy systems, with all of their custom code, batch jobs, patched-together interfaces, and into the new world of one completely integrated system that would run your entire company, seamlessly. Do you remember? What happened? The Wizard of Oz is coming to mind here!

In part 2 of this series, I walked through a sample of how you can look at what’s really happening in your processes.

Now, let’s look at systems. With each system, you have a short term and long term TCO (total cost of ownership). Let’s play pretend. Your company has one system that runs all its operations. The interfaces are all built in, with a single source of data truth. One day, a department decides that they don’t really like how the system works for them. They think its clunky, not user-friendly, and they have found a system they believe will work really well for them. Their sales pitch is polished, including a complete ROI that looks like a gift from Santa himself. SOLD! Let’s get that project started. YIKES! What comes to mind for me are ALL the costs, not just the ones that are front and center. Here’s my list: